After suffering a three-wicket defeat against Rajasthan Royals (RR) on Thursday (April 15), Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting admitted that not giving veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin his full quota of overs was "probably a mistake".
See Also: “Dew played a big role, we were 15-20 runs short”, says Rishabh Pant after DC’s loss to RR
While defending a modest 148, DC skipper Rishabh Pant brought Ashwin in the attack after the powerplay and the off-spinner conceded only 14 runs without a boundary in his three overs
With two left-handers – David Miller (62) and Rahul Tewatia (19) – in the middle, Pant didn’t continue with Ashwin and introduced Marcus Stoinis in the 13th over.
The Australian all-rounder gave away 15 runs in that over, which took RR from 58/5 to 73/5.
"That's certainly something that we will talk about when I get a chance to sit down with the team. He had bowled beautifully. Three overs, none for 14. Hadn't even conceded a boundary," Ponting said in the virtual press conference.
"He had a disappointing game in game one, but he has worked really hard in the last few days to make sure he adjusted and got things right in this game.
"I thought he bowled beautifully tonight. Probably a mistake on our behalf, and something we will be talking about later on."
Royals were 90/6 at one stage and after Miller got out, scoring 62 runs off 43 balls, they found themselves reeling at 104/7.
With 27 needed off the final two overs, all-rounder Chris Morris (36* off 18 balls) stepped up to the occasion. He smashed Kagiso Rabada for 15 runs in the penultimate over, before hitting Tom Curran for a couple of sixes in the last over to seal the deal with two balls to spare.
"We probably gave him (Morris) a few too many easy balls, a few too many slot balls if you like," Ponting said.
"The length wasn't quite where it needed to be. If you look at the replay of the game, if you bowled a reasonable yorker, he didn't score off them.
"If it was back of a length, sort of, above stump high, he didn't get hold of them either, especially with pace on the ball. We talked about how to bowl to him, but the execution probably wasn't there."
Just like Pant, Ponting said dew played a big role in the second innings.
"The other thing you have got to factor in is just how wet and how dewy the ball was in the second innings of the game. It wasn't easy for the bowlers to grip. You could see it at the end there. There were a few full tosses that fast bowlers bowled with the ball slipping out of their hand a little bit,” he remarked.
"That's part and parcel of IPL cricket. We knew coming here that there will be a little bit of dew in the second half of the game. And we didn't adapt, and we didn't execute as well as we could have tonight."
The coach rued the errors in the last four overs of the game.
"Till around the 13th-over mark in our bowling innings, the second innings of the game, everything was going according to plan. We made a few errors coming in the last four or five overs of the game.
"When you are a little bit off against any team in the IPL, just bowl a couple of bad balls or just a couple of those here and there, it is quite often the difference in the outcome. We didn't get things right at the back end tonight."
Delhi Capitals will take on Punjab Kings in their next game on Sunday (April 18).
(With PTI inputs)
